I have just finished a day in which I had four Masses in a row. It is Friday, so I had the two daily Masses, one at Blessed Sacrament and one at Saint Mary’s, then I had a school Mass at 10am, followed by an 11:30am funeral Mass. Why do I share this? Well, for starters I’m NOT trying garner your sympathy, but I mention it because even though as I write this I’m tired and a little hungry, I’m also very happy. I’m happy because today was about ministry, which is why men enter the priesthood. Nobody I know in the priesthood has ever said that administration and finances were the reasons they chose their vocation!

The above passage can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. It can be seen as a call to the priesthood and, in the more universal sense, calling others to Christ. Those two meanings, however, go hand in hand. While not everyone is called to the ministerial priesthood, we are ALL called to bring people to Christ. I challenge everyone in our two parishes who knows young men who are faithful followers of Jesus, to consider questioning them about joining the priesthood. If we don’t ask, then we don’t plant the seed. If we don’t plant the seed, then the vocation will not grow. I know that families are smaller now, but the need for good men in the priesthood is great and we cannot let the smaller families stop us from doing what needs to be done.

Which takes us to the universal call for us all to be bringing folks closer to Christ. This is real and is something we need to work on as a Church. Sharing our faith and our story with others is seen as hard, as scary, and sometimes even embarrassing. But we cannot let fear stop us from sharing our love for Jesus Christ, for when we do we give evil a chance to win. We must all be disciples first and being a disciple means spreading the love! People spread the love for less important things. We all know people who love a sports team or a recording artist and they act like true disciples, they spread the message! I’m asking for us all to be true disciples for the only person that really matters in the long run, Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God. Let us always be evangelizing by word and deed and by doing so we will show people the love of God. Peace.